Surrey Art Gallery Exhibitions
Look at what's on exhibit now, and take a peek at what's coming soon, including at outreach venues. Then, check out past exhibitions.
Exhibitions in the Surrey Art Gallery are drawn from and respond to predominant activity in the contemporary art community. They bring into critical context works by diverse artists with shared concerns or respond to specific issues within culture or the surrounding community.
In an effort to provide our visitors with as much detail as possible, exhibition listings may include additional information, such as printable PDFs, short videos, and links to exhibition-related events.
Attention news media: For access to hi-resolution images, PSAs and other background information, contact Angela Cachay Dwyer, Publicist, by email or by telephone at 604-501-5189.
Planning a visit to the Surrey Art Gallery? View our visitor information.
Current Exhibitions
See the excitement of the opening celebration for our spring exhibitions!
Spectacular Sangeet
April 13 to June 16
Spectacular Sangeet is a new larger-than-life exhibition of performance and theatricality, spanning the grand scale of old Bollywood films to the more intimate spaces of community traditions. Sangeet – the Hindi word for music and dance – refers to a selection of South Asian musical styles.
Spectacular Sangeet features these same styles remixed with digital design, new media, and contemporary art with generous helpings of humour, fun, and a dash of irony. This group exhibition, with artworks from 8 Canadian and British artists, illuminates relationships between the body and music, the individual and the group, gender and labour, spirituality and the profane. The artists are Chila Kumari Burman, Oliver Husain, Harminder Singh Judge, Project Rainbow, Ron Sangha, Jack Shadbolt, Ikbal Singh, and Meera Margaret Singh.
This exhilarating assembly of retro Bollywood poster collage, kinetic photo-sculpture, human dance mandalas, and documentary video installation art incorporates diverse genres of sangeet: from giddha to rock, and classical dance to contemporary movement. Chila Kumari Burman mines Bollywood film history, courtesan culture, Indian comic books, and found art to create a layered meditation on identity, gender, and music.
Oliver Husain unravels notions of beauty, and plays with mirroring and multiplicity while putting the theatrical back into film. Ron Sangha’s new, digitally altered pictures of Bharatanatyam performance consider the relationship between the singular dancer and the many. Whether celebratory or critical, audacious or introspective, each artwork presents a picture worth a thousand songs and represents a living – and vibrant – artistic tradition.
Spectacular Sangeet is curated by Naveen Girn and Jordan Strom.
Spectacular Sangeet is presented in collaboration with the Vancouver International Bhangra Celebration Society – find out about the HSBC City of Bhangra Festival in May/June. (Website. New window.)
Open Sound 2013: Sound/Tract
Ian Skedd: Whatever Is Contained Within Is Art, And Everything Else is Life
February 15 to June 10
Open Sound is an exhibition program developed in 2008 to support the production and presentation of audio art forms as part of contemporary art practice.
Presented in the Surrey Art Centre’s lobby elevator, Ian Skedd’s new sound installation responds to genres of background music and soundtracks of public announcement. This is the first of 3 exhibitions within the Open Sound 2013 program that is guest curated by Debra Zhou.
The Princess Myth: Exploring South Asian teen identity and wellness
May 4 to August 17
This exhibition of visual and literary art produced by Surrey students explores South Asian teenage girls’ identity as shaped by cultural values and the growing influence of social media.
Presented by the Arts Council of Surrey, and organized by Marc Pelech and Mandeep Nijjar, working with a Steering Committee.
Wild Idyll: Robert Michener & Ann Nelson
March 9 to May 19
Surrey Art Gallery presents paintings drawn from the permanent collection by Surrey artists Robert Michener and Ann Nelson that celebrate springtime.
One of the works by Robert Michener is his large-scale painting Fly Fishing Mid-May from 1996, which is a panoramic vision of nature, drawn from his childhood memories of fly fishing in the Root River Valley. Michener‘s painting describes a dream-like environment as though viewed from above. The soft colours and the single fisherman pursuing his catch-and-release pastime evoke a mood of harmony with nature and interconnectedness of life.
A work by Ann Nelson – Early Spring, Sooke, 2010 – is from a series of works that explore the coastal geography of southern British Columbia. In this work, the artist presents a dramatic reawakening of nature in spring through the composition’s high vantage point and the energetic application of paint over the surface.
This display is also a recognition and thank you to these artists for their generous donation of paintings in 2012 to the Gallery’s collection.
REMIXX.sur.RE
Ongoing
How do Surrey's youth see their community?
The REMIXX.sur.RE exhibit uses
- 700 digital photos,
- 60 digital video and animation clips,
- text in 5 languages, and
- 260 audio clips,
created by Surrey youth. Its software engine produces hundreds of thousands of compositions from this database. These "remixes" are interactive, generated live-on the fly by the movement of visitors in the gallery.
REMIXX.sur.RE personalizes every visitor's visual and audio experience. The result is an extraordinary expression of diverse youth visions of the people and places of Surrey. It is an example of youth's engagement with technology, and shows how technology is affecting perceptions of the world.
REMIXX was youth led and youth driven, supported by a team of mentors. Over 100 youth from all of Surrey's communities contributed digital content to the project. Over the summer, the Gallery's TechLab became a hub of computers, conversation, emails, animating and coding, as the youth worked as artists in residence.
Learn more about REMIXX.sur.RE. (PDF. New window.)
Upcoming Exhibitions
ARTS 2013
June 29 to August 31
Opening Reception: June 28, 7 to 9pm
Popular with visitors for the variety of images, styles, and media, this juried exhibition organized by the Arts Council of Surrey celebrates established and emerging visual artists from Surrey and the surrounding region.
Through painting, glasswork, sculpture, photography, and fibre arts, some artworks portray traditional imagery while others are contemporary and experimental.
Divining Natures
June 29 to August 31
Opening Reception: June 28, 7 to 9pm
This exhibition features 3 mid-career Surrey artists who share an interest in creating paintings that are rich in symbolism about the natural world.
Mary Frances Batut creates boldly patterned designs inspired by animal imagery. Elizabeth Carefoot’s mixed media works are informed by the shamanist traditions of her grandmother. Deborah Putman explores spiritual meanings in her compositions based on her observations of animals in Canada’s North.
Nancy Paterson: Stock Market Skirt
June 29 to December 1
Opening Reception: June 28, 7 to 9pm
Nancy Paterson’s kinetic installation is one of the first telerobotic sculptures totally interfaced with the internet. The Stock Market Skirt’s hemline rises and falls according to stock prices streamed live from the internet. Paterson’s installation thoughtfully and playfully brings together economics, technology, feminism, and art.